Three Church-Planting Practices That Need To Die

Over the years, I’ve seen lots of great church-planting practices, and many not-so-great ones. Too many churches open and then close too often because instead of looking to God, they were looking to themselves. Even more unfortunate is the fact that many church plants continue to exist but are like an enclave for the small community of people who attend. It’s like the community could care less that the church exists.

We must always ask ourselves: What difference does my church plant make in this community and in the world?

It’s a significant question that will take lots of prayer and a good plan. As you consider this, let me share three church-planting practices that need to die if we are to begin and sustain church plants that glorify God and keep us on mission with Him.

First, we need to stop the sort of messaging that communicates (implicitly or explicitly) that all other churches are really bad and ours is the best.

I have seen this a lot over the years. For example, a mailer may go out and the messaging says something like: “The top 10 reasons church is boring, but ours is awesome!” When we devalue other members of the Body of Christ to lift up the uniqueness of our congregation, it’s a net loss for the kingdom.

We must aim for a spirit of humility that allows other churches to thrive while God grows ours at His own pace.

The end never justifies the means.

Second, we should stop offering a completely weekend-centric ministry (if that is what we currently do).

There’s a well-known pastor who says it’s all about the weekend. My belief is that if it’s all about the weekend, then it’s probably all about the pastor. And if it’s all about the pastor, then it’s a broken system and a broken church plant.

We must aim instead to be a community of people who walk together Sunday through Saturday and who see each day as an opportunity to worship God and draw others into His Kingdom.

Third, we must never plant churches simply to meet the niche needs of Christians.

We don’t plant churches to be “the most contemporary church in town” or “the most charismatic church in town” or “the most Reformed in town.”

Instead, we must plant churches with one end goal in mind: to help us be on mission to show and share the love of Jesus with those who don’t know Him.

Sure, our churches can have their own style in terms of worship, preaching, and practices, but these must not determine how and why we plant churches.

We must aim to plant churches for the glory of God and the good of the community, not to meet our own needs.

So as you consider planting a church, consider why you are doing it and seek to avoid the above pitfalls. And if you have already planted a church, continue to check yourself as to how you are communicating, how often you meet, and the spirit in which you serve God and others.

Ed Stetzer

Ed Stetzer holds the Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College, Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center, Dean of the Wheaton College School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership, and is interim teaching pastor of Moody Church in Chicago.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Could not agree more Ed. There is great pressure to put people in the seats on weekends and thus place all our energy there. But that is a short term fix that does not necessarily result in disciples growing in Christ. The other six days matter. Thanks for your continual insight and clear teaching.

Ed- In response to the second practice (“we should stop offering a completely weekend-centric ministry”)… would you agree or disagree that a new plant less than 1-year-old in an urban location, should seek to build community to better reach a community? Connecting the community before winning the community? Its been shared in certain church planting assessments/training environments by popular networks that the best and most effective way to serve and reach your city is having the best weekend experience you can (at least early on). Is being a”Sunday morning experience church” acceptable and effective at the beginning? Are Sunday mornings with little budget and smaller congregation, limited availabilty, not your bread and butter AND is it not the front door and main door of your ministry that people walk through…at the beginning?

Ed-thanks for this post. In reply to the second practice (we should stop offering a completely weekend-centric ministry)… Would you agree or disagree that its ok/effective for a new church plant (less than one year) in an urban setting to be a “Sunday morning experience church” at the beginning? Is it not effective to build community before effective reaching a community? Connecting the community before winning the community? Due to smaller budget, resources, etc, is it (Sunday morning gatherings) not your bread and butter in the early years? Isn’t it the front door of your ministry that people will come to truly see who you are? Its been said by a large church planting network in main training environments, that “the best way to reach your city is to have the best Sunday morning you can have” especially during infancy. How do you strike the balance when your resources are limited (money, time, leaders) in the early years of creating and focusing more eggs in gathering versus reaching?

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Church planter and revitalizer, pastor, trainer, and author of dozens of articles and books.

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Ed Stetzer

Ed Stetzer, Ph.D., holds the Billy Graham Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College and serves as Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center. He has planted, revitalized, and pastored churches, trained pastors and church planters on six continents, holds two masters degrees and two doctorates, and has written a dozen books and hundreds of articles.

Stetzer is the North American regional director for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, a contributing editor for Christianity Today, a columnist for Outreach Magazine, and is frequently cited or interviewed in news outlets such as USAToday and CNN. He is the Executive Editor of The Gospel Project, a Bible study curriculum used by more than one million individuals each week.

He is the co-host of the BreakPoint This Week radio program with John Stonestreet. He also serves as Visiting Professor of Research and Missiology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Visiting Research Professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has taught at many other colleges and seminaries.